I’m still working on Rage Across the Stars, but it’s going very, very slowly. I wish I could say it’s for good reasons, but it’s just that I’m having a hard time with it.
With Seeking Home (which is my new working title on what I used to call The Widening Gyre), I only had to deal with one POV. The only thing the reader sees is what Tajen sees. But with Rage, we’ve got at least four POVs to worry about, and three (or four, or maybe even five) separate-but-linked stories that all have to come together by the end of the book. It’s a challenge, and it isn’t made any easier by the lack of “creative energy” I feel lately.
I’m not as much of an activist as many of my friends, but I’m plugged in to what’s going on, and I’m as dismayed as most moderate liberals with what’s going on in our country. While I don’t think Trump is going to destroy the US, I do find myself incredibly worried by the incremental rollback of rights and hard-fought victories we’ve fought for years–decades, even–to get.
More importantly, my students are worried. I’ve been fielding many more questions than usual about politics. Which means I’m spending some time every day assuaging their fears, or helping them find ways to help, etc. And I’m also spending more energy trying to redirect them back to the class. Which means that at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is use my brain.
It’s no wonder I get most of my fiction-writing done during vacations and the summer.